carriers

CTIA - The Wireless Association has announced the Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment, the latest in a long line of plans and deliberation on how to curb smartphone thefts. The commitment is split into two parts, and includes several big-name carriers and handset makers.

This week T-Mobile USA has made clear that they’ll be trashing all overage charges for smartphones, tablets, and any other device on their network. This move was started with their Simple Choice plan last year, and will now be spread to all devices on all plans.

It might sound like a headline worthy of April Fools, but BlackBerry is a company that can hardly afford such a joke. The embattled smartphone maker has just announced that come April 25, it will no longer renew its license agreement with T-Mobile that allows the carrier to sell BlackBerry devices.

The battle between carriers is reaching a new chapters. After T-Mobile and Verizon announced new deals to entice new users or keep old ones from switching sides, AT&T is now also revealing a new offer under its AT&T Next program.

After T-Mobile's rather biting offer, almost a bribe, for subscribers from other carriers to switch sides, it was only a matter of time before those carriers bit back. Now Verizon is announcing a revised Edge plan, shortening the 6-month wait to 30 days, to keep their customers from jumping ship.

The team at T-Mobile USA let it be known at CES 2014 that they had no love for their fellow carriers, going so far as to offer early termination fee repayment for switching. Users moving away from Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T were offered their entire family’s early termination fees - to a point - when trading in working devices, up to $650 USD per line. This bit of a program has been expanded this week to include more carriers than just the initial three.

It is no secret that T-Mobile aims to make waves in the wireless industry with its Uncarrier push, something that has offered up various perks and seemingly spurred other carriers to adopt similar options. The carrier's John Legere teased earlier this week "Uncarrier 4.0", and according to a source that cropped up, this could mean paying other carriers' early termination fees for new subscribers.

T-Mobile increased its customer base in Q3 2013 by more than 1 million, the company announced in its earnings call. This marks the second consecutive quarter in which the mobile carrier has led the industry in customer acquisition. It sold 5.6 million smartphones in the quarter, 15% of which were iPhone sales, and smartphones made up 88% of the company's device sales revenue.

AT&T announced back in July they were moving forward to acquire Leap Wireless. This could bring Cricket Wireless under the AT&T wing and the purchase price was said to be more than $1 billion. Specifically, $1.19 billion. But while the plans were spelled out, that didn't mean the deal was finalized.

The NSA has received a lot of backlash for its various spying activities, but it isn't the only entity that is paying for its activities. AT&T, which has long been interested in buying a wireless company in Europe, has received substantial resistance, with it being made known that any purchase that takes place will "face intense scrutiny."